Herle made the comments in comparison to Ford’s contenders for leadership Christine Elliott, Caroline Mulroney and Tanya Granic Allen.

Since Ford’s election though, Wynne has brushed-off any suggestion of the threat that the new Tory leader poses. Speaking at a school in Toronto’s east end, Wynne rolled out the same talking points she used at a Sunday rally.

From her perspective she said, “it didn’t matter who the leader of the Conservatives was going to be.”

“No matter who we’re fighting against,” she said. “It is always about who we’re fighting for and what we are fighting for.”

In an unannounced stop at Queen’s Park, Ford told reporters they wouldn’t see him around the building very often. He said staying in the office is not how you make “sales.”

“I have to be out there non-stop,” he said.

Ford has promised to scrap a proposed carbon tax that formed a key pillar of the party’s election platform introduced under former leader Patrick Brown, criticized the Liberal government’s sex education curriculum and said he’d allow caucus members to vote with their conscience on policy matters.

“The grassroots people are rising up right now,” Ford said. “This is a movement I’ve never seen in thirty years in politics.”

In his podcast, Herle explained the danger Ford posed to the Liberals by pointing out that he competes on traditional Liberal territory. He said Ford’s brother — former Toronto Mayor Rob Ford — had more of a draw on those demographics, but Ford’s own mayoral campaign also showed that trend.

“The Fords compete with the Liberals on Liberal territory for votes,” Herle said.

For example, Herle pointed to multicultural communities, lower income voters, the suburbs, and some areas of downtown.

“The people that Liberals count on to win, the Fords actually go in and draw some support from those groups.”

In an election held today, the Tories would win 44 per cent of the vote, according to Forum. The NDP would place second and win official opposition status with 27 per cent of the vote and the Liberals would secure 23 per cent. The interactive voice response telephone survey included 923 randomly selected Ontario voters. The margin of error is +/- 3%, 19 times out of 20.

The poll said Ford would win premiership even though half the respondents said his leadership made them less likely to vote Progressive Conservative in the next election.

Forum’s poll is the first since Ford became leader after a chaotic final day on Saturday. Its results are more positive for Ford than previous polls, but a poll from Mainstreet during the leadership race showed the Tories with the upper hand with Ford at the helm.

After taking several questions about Ford and her standings in the polls, Wynne urged on reporters not to “minimize the importance” of the June 7 election and “boil it down to a political horse race, this is about the fundamentals of what government exists to do and I look forward to a serious debate.”

She characterized the difference between her and Ford as “stark.”

“Doug Ford and I disagree on a lot of things, that’s a reality, that’s not news to anyone.”